Grrl Power #894 – Plan B from outer space
Okay, so I’m making fun of myself a little with this page. My actions scenes aren’t ever going down in the annals of comic book history for their intensity. There’s a lot of starting and stopping.
Personally I think mid-combat banter is fine, but mid-action banter is bad. By which I mean a shot of Spider-Man delivering a paragraph of dialog while dodging a bullet doesn’t exactly make you feel the adrenaline of the moment. Yes, it’s a simple abuse of comic book time, but it does make part of your brain wonder if Spidey is a really fast talker or if the bad guy is firing extremely subsonic bullets. Like “how is it staying airborne” subsonic.
Hench Wench would either be the worst Super they could kidnap, or the best. The worst, because presumably this little cabal attacking the team would terminate her employment if they all got captured or if she went AWOL/got abducted. Or the best, because while she wouldn’t have active powers to beat up the crew/damage the ship/be a general nuisance, presumably she still has that… factor that makes her a super, and maybe that’s something alien scanners can figure something out.
Hey have I mentioned recently that I have an Amazon referral link? If you make that link your Amazon bookmark, it will help me continue buying things I probably don’t need, like this sword. Look, I’m not some weirdo with “too many knives” but I thought a sword or two would be kind of fun to have. As it is, I’ve taken it out of the scabbard a few times and thought, 1) Neat, 2) This is heavier than I thought it would be, and 3) medieval people who actually used swords would probably have benefited from flash in the pan trendy exercise equipment like this wrist trainer. (Insert joke about all the single knights not needing a wrist trainer.)
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The last time someone tried “serious hardware” around these guys, they got *really* dead.
They haven’t seen Sydney’s shield block EVERYTHING, or the PPO that destroys fleets in one volley.
And they haven’t seen Max really decide that shit had gone on long enough.
“HOLY OVARIES!”
This is one of those times that someone should say: “To challenge them is to court…Death”.
And don’t forget that time Sydney almost OSed an alien whosr tech able to detect her ball being on, these idiot’s “serious” hardware wouldn’t survive a second against her or Maxima
IF they came with serious hardware all they would get in return is a painful death, Sydney or Maxima would be able to take on whatever they throw at em.
yeah taking into account that not even dabbler is able to detect those sphres with either magic or technology that fact those weird aliens were able to detect them was seriously impresive
It would be a way to weed out any other S and Omega class supers who don’t want to be heroes or villains, send down the heavy hardware, cause so much destruction that every one of these comes flying out of the wood work to reduce your army to ashes.
*We slaughtered their armies and destroyed their cities; the survivors however stood up from the ashes and ruins, stared down our fleets and marched unharmed through our barrages and beams; an unstoppable wave of vengeance.
Because if we can’t save this world we’re sure as hell going to avenge it.
Yeah this planning session probably isn’t leading anywhere…actionable.
Like, I know they’re references to Iron Giant and Nausicaa, but all I can think is how much boss’ “coming back with serious firepower” musing looks like a situation that has already happened to Sydney, when she was ALONE, and how poorly that went for the bearers of said serious firepower.
Turns out, the Squidley’s were the bottom tier, used to mop up any remaining forces and to keep scavengers away
It seemed to be turning very definitely their way by the time Sydney managed to get away. The first Kaiju was taken down hard, because she was able to focus on that single target and managed to stay inside its effective distance. She has a probable from the second group, but if she had stuck around to confirm the kill instead of making a hasty withdrawal then she probably wouldn’t have managed either.
even then the kind of tech the squids seem to have doesnt appear to be normal by any mean, they seem to be an unknown factor to everyone else and everyone refers to them as “the unknown agresor” which means that it looks like they trully have no idea who the fuck attacked them and soo far their technology seems to be on a completly diferent level to the rest of the alien species we have seen so far (like they were able to actually detect sydney’s spheres something not even dabblers was able to do and they seem to know what they are which is… terryfing when you consider the current theory is that they are literaly pieces of hyper god technology more powerful than what a trascendent species could create)
If Mr Buble had taken a second shot, Sydney and Co would be dust on an alien word
I think it took all their firepower to get that hit on the shield… and moments later it just recovered.
Curious about the “deviant” comment. Are we to presume that lizard-face here is genetically modified from whatever his actual species is? Wonder what his species normally looks like.
Heck, for all we know, he could be a highly modified human.
What if ALL aliens are just modified humans?
Gasp! What if all humans are heavily modified aliens?!?
WHAT IF SUPERS ARE HEAVILY MODIFIED ALIENS!?!?!
WHAT IF ALIENS… didn’t… burst… out of chests…
Pretty sure she meant he’s into tails
Deviant as in furry
Yeah, as others have said, it’s deviant as in pervert, not deviant as in mutant.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deviant
Why is that aimed at me?
Deviant, as in different! Furry’s are the most accepting, of beings and some of the most generous! I’m a Furry, so i know that of which I speak!We have been known, to give $100,000, to animal charities! At one Furcon!!!
Frankenstein: Whose brain was that?
Eyegore: Abby someone…Abby Normal.
Soon….. Soon the Universe will learn the GLORIOUS/HORRIBLE truth about Earth…..
Soon they will Fear and Adore Earth in equal measure…..
Soon they will know that messing with Earth is the most foolish thing imaginable. It means the End of All things.
I have seen some of this “Doctor” guy, who ever he is (apparently now a SHE?), but after living with Daniel the Human for a while & learning about Earth, I do rather like this quote from the show…
https://youtu.be/GidbEhL0teE?t=155
“I gave them the wrong warning. I should have told them to run as fast as they can, run and hide because the monsters are coming, the Human Race…”
A shame the quote was totally inappropriate. Alien race comes down to enslave the humans and take their stuff, Doctor makes them leave, and Earth blows them up before they go, saying they can’t make themselves dependent on him coming to save them all the time. If the aliens had been allowed to leave, they could tell all their equally nasty friends about Earth and come back when the Doctor isn’t there. Honourable, no, maybe not, but extremely practical.
better to destroy an invading force, then it is to murder retrating foes.
what she should hav done is fired a shot past em, and when the doctor asked what was that.
“to show them that we hav sticks of our own, and your way was kind way.”
The same foes that, just moments before, tried to enslave (or worse) the entire planet?
To paraphrase the Great Chaka “It’s best to kill the dog at your feet, than to let it slink away and return as a jackal leaping for your throat!”
This is the same ship, whose leader had surrendered and then immediately tried to attack the doctor when his back was turned. Their “retreat” didn’t necessarily mean anything.
that is tactically unsound, your retreating army now has more intel than they did before and can devise a better attack strategy for next time. Ancient honor systems only worked when both sides were bound by the same code; as soon as these “honorable” armies faced those who viewed it as life and death they found themselves at serious disadvantages even against a less well armed enemy provided a war of attrition was a viable option.
But to allow an enemy you KNOW has more forces, greater forces, and only turned tail to turn because they underestimated your forces so had come with a poor plan and less firepower than needed would be foolish. If you completely decimate them so they can’t go back to go over what went wrong, what they could do differently next time, and study your defenses and return with the necessary force and a better strategy; well as I was saying, completely decimating them deprives your enemy of that intel and may even give the impression you were SO WELL armed that you decimated the invading force causing those back home to second guess invading you again…and with a good enough bluff they may even try to instead form a peace agreement and eventual trade.
Humans (the only sample we have to go by) are a history of ramming heads against one another, every new encounter was usually two forces hitting each other. If one found it could run over the other it did, if they found they struggled but were pushing enough they kept pushing; if they found their forces were too even and it too exhausting to push THEN the two would try to find neutral ground and possibly ally with one another so they could then push over someone else they came to push either of them over.
*as a generalization, politics and protectorates over resource access complicates it a little, but that is the general pattern.
destroying em, also says if you come here you well die. tell me how many allies? other then small groups seeking protection, or the next invading force well sucied then flee, they are dead ether way. But your right you might scare a few but you set the stage for extremisim more then you deter future rivals.
I can go through human history and find many cases where I am right, and many cases where you are right. There is a reason I said it was generalization of human interactions of conflict. There are many more variables in each case that determined which way it went, including cultural and psychological as well as each side deciding if it was worth their resources to continue the conflict. Ideologies tend to be a tipping factor in just how far some are willing to go even when they find someone who pushes back just as hard or harder.
Are you talking about furries or the supers
Super Furries
so about a quarter of all super heroes depending on how you want define “furries”. I mean I could easily rattle off a dozen for DC and a dozen for Marvel from memory.
Good, they’ve misidentified our weakness for monologues.
They will no doubt watch “The Incredibles” in the near future, and say “oooooohhhh!” loudly at the first scene that mentions Monologuing.
They are going to try to abduct small, harmless Sydney next, aren’t they?
They had better be ready to swear they won’t try it again by Grabthar’s Hammer.
“Oh, the Humanity”
Oh I reaaaaally hope so. Sydney hasnt gotten enough love this arc.
Kidnap Sydney… oh that would be fun for the 3 to 5 pages it would last. please?
I could believe, if she shows up, that they could try that – lizard guy has seeming only seen the hentaicle and Mr. Bubble, so he might think that with Torchey’s help they could finagle Sydney into a ship, then worry about getting through the shield later…
If they handcuffed her with mittens on, she would be just a normal human.
So with the snatch one and make a run for it; this once again brings up what is their exit strategy.
At this point I find it hard to believe they actually came with Ray’s tour bus and actually snuck down themselves somewhere and then mingled with the tour group as a cover; seeing as Ray apparently packed that tour bus I can see him not knowing who all was there.
No, he knew they were there, he just didn’t know why they were there and was pissed they didn’t include him in their plans (he totally would have gone along with it)
So I think following with both Rhuen and Guesticus’s line of reasoning, it makes more sense that they came with the group to mingle and have a better chance at surprising Maxima, but relying on using Ray’s ship to leave seems awfully ballsy and presumptuous, IMO
I would wager they have another ship for the extraction, either following Ray’s ship, or maybe cloaked, or hidden beneath times square for the last few millennia because a prophecy once said they’d be able to abduct someone here one day (and they’re that long lived, or it was passed down through generations) …
… or else they really are just complete idiots.
I am going with complete idiots, and this page cements it “maybe their powers only last for a few seconds at a time?” proves they did ZERO recon on the Earth, not even learning anything from the tourism board that has been coming to Earth for millennia. Just some snatch and grab first out the gate poachers. These are the guys that when you go looking into an ancient tomb with deadly traps and find all those skeletons lying around, yeah these are those skeletons.
Yeah, they came for the recon, and got lucky that their target showed up right where they happened to be
It was a risky move, and they could have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for those kids and their pesky dog
coming down with a tour bus does give the impression of recon. But their next actions were/are pretty stupid.
Imagine this was a jewelry heist at a museum, they decided to go in with a tour bus group so they as a large group could case the joint, take pictures of the display cases, the security system, all under cover of being overly excited tourists…but then saw a huge sparkly diamond in a jewel case so decided right there and then to smash the display case in broad daylight, and their only ride was the tour bus they came in on; so they smash, grab, and try to run for the front door with every security guard on them, the police in route and no reasonable method of escape.
No, more like they saw a diamond not in a case, or with no visible security and decide to snatch it, only to find another gang who had the same plan
this kind of falls apart as in this case the “diamond” IS security and was with a security team. I mean if we want to go 1-1 literal they grabbed a diamond and then the other jewels sprang to life and started to kick their asses while the diamond summoned forth an old one that ripped from their grasp and could slaughter them in a second only for exhibits from a nearby exhibit to pick a fight with the diamond and those jewels and also kick their asses.
I mean the most literal comparison would be trying to kidnap a cop twenty feet from other cops and making a big light show of it.
So yeah, they weren’t subtle, they didn’t wait till she was alone, in an alley or follow her till her guard was down. They grabbed at her, in a crowd, while she was drawing attention to herself yelling at the captain of the tour bus while Dabbler and Cora were talking to her, the other super cops in the same square. So yeah, I’d say broke a jewel case and set off the alarms is more apt than scooped up a jewel off the floor with how much attention they drew to themselves and how overly confident they were with zero intel of getting away with that.
OH, they have IRON GIANT!
I recognize the Iron Giant but I can only remember the outline for the other one. The other though is from Marvel. One of those precursor guys, whatever they were called. The ones who liked punching Asgardians for funsies and showed up in the MCU as an explanation for Infinity Stones at one point… Actually I think it might be the one from the MCU.
I want to say “Klaatu Barada Nikto” but… That robot is too small and searching shows it’s the wrong shape but is from roughly the right timeframe. One of those rocketpunk old-school movies. I remember it in the same silver with a clear head and a tube where the laser comes from. I know it’s from somewhere.
Finally figured it out! They’re not robots, that’s what threw me off! Well, sort of, depends on if you can call kaiju teraforming bioweapons grown to destroy “robots”. They’re the God Warriors shown in that one expository flashback in Nausicaa! The ones on their great march that destroyed the world! So halfway between the precursor guy and the Iron Giant.
The large entity on our left/background appears to be Eson the Searcher, a Celestial from the MCU. Supposedly approximately 2000 ft. tall, for a sense of scale…
So: Eson, (MechWarrior???), Iron Giant
Errrg, I meant: Eson the Seacher (MCU), (some type of mech I don’t recognize), God Warrior from “Nausicaa.”
Feel free to inject sarcasm, here…
the very comment chain you are replying to tells you who the one in the middle is; its the Iron Giant.
The precursors are called Celestials in the marvel universe I believe.
the MCU simplifies the cosmology, even Ego the Living Planet is called a Celestial. Makes it easier for general audiences to just refer to every powerful cosmic being by one term. Marvel comics WAY over complicated its cosmology. not even kidding check out the tv tropes page on cosmic beings under the marvel comics tab. So MANY, and so many of them are redundant. I think there may even be a whole dozen that claimed to be alone in the dark nothing at the beginning of time.
Well, if you are in the dark at the beginning of time, it’s easy to believe you were the only one
A dozen people could all claim to have been wandering the Kalahari for months on their own, without seeing signs of any one else
that’s true but in comics it still gets kind of annoying. Marvel is fussing over this “Knull” character who in reality was created to retcon the backstory for the symbiotes that was invented in the Venom Space Knight run; and he’s all I was alone in the dark origin of the universe I am darkness, an elder god,
and I’m just sitting here like…okay so you are a skinny Spawn looking wannabe of Chaos King, Master Chaos, Oblivion, Maelstrom, The Hunger, The Anomaly, and probably a few more if I check out the tropes page. I don’t know the backstory they made for Nyx (I took one look at those and was so unimpressed with their depiction of Nyx that I didn’t bother reading it), and don’t remember Asteroth too clearly. I think Nemesis split herself into the infinity gems out of loneliness because…oh she was alone in the dark origins of creation.
You can only have a certain number of truly unique origin stories, before you realise: very few are really that much different from each other and understand their origin is not as important as what they did after
its okay when its super characters, like where did you get your power
1: born with it
2: gamma radiation
3: radioactive bug
4: cosmic rays
5: parent(s) were/are aliens/ I am an alien
6: government experiment
ect…
its a lot more tiresome when the origin is part of your cosmology.
you have a pantheon of celestial gods, or aliens that seeded Earth/the galaxy with life and super powers.
Marvel now has THREE different alien races claiming to have seeded the cosmos with life, two of which responsible for two different kinds of supers on Earth.
but its even worse with gods. A lot of lateral changes. The Promial Gods didn’t even fit into the pantheon and were introduced just to have two Galactus level beings beat down Galactus so the writers had an excuse for Annihilus and Thanos to capture Galactus to use as a weapon that didn’t undermine his power; we have the Infinites *who are ignored in every cosmic event since their introduction*, and so on. Not kidding tv tropes page on cosmic beings for Marvel comics is ridiculously long….and its because they don’t care; its all about the next big event to try and bring in new readers to a dying industry. Why the movies keep it simpler and don’t have to worry about a new story every few months when they can drag one year’s worth of comic book story *counting cross-overs and multi-issues* over eight years.
to put it simply, take any anime that has cosmic beings, now have some new writer come along and forget those even exist and start introducing the exact same kind of character, and then repeat that over sixty years. Now Tenchi Muyo has fifty Chousin, we meet Omni King Zeno’s third cousin in charge of twenty other universe along with a whole extended family (put a pin in that one because I think we might meet Zeno’s mother or something at some point, just a hunch), or Slayers introduces thirteen more Shabranigdo’s each one claiming to be the real lord of darkness; and somewhere the writers forgot the Lord of Nightmares was a thing, ect… that is how it feels trying to keep track of Marvel’s cosmic family.
to put that in perspective Jack Kirby and Stan Lee introduced Galactus, who was originally never intended to ever appear again and was at the time considered the single most powerful being in the universe with nothing above and no equals….now fast forward fifty years and a few hundred writers and a dozen or so editors.
Wait wait wait…. you came to earth to capture a being capable of bringing down an infamously powerful fel warship in one shot…. and you didnt bring the *serious* hardware?
Yeah these guys are idiots and the main cast are suspense killingly overpowered.Thankfully the story doesnt do many big fights so these curbstomps dont kill the story completely .Come to think of it thats 2 waves of idiots in one encounter.I really hope something in this farce adds to the plot ^^.
Bringing the serious hardware would no doubt have major repercussions… even if it works, you’re going to attracting a lot of heat from people who have even more serious hardware. Their initial plan, launching a relatively covert kidnapping, was probably the best option… but the best option still wasn’t a very good one.
First rule of serious hardware-
Someone else always has bigger guns.
They better not make too much of a mess or someone will go get Shlock! (Comic may be done, but Shlock Mercenary is STILL the funniest military sci-fi webcomic I have ever read! https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12)
what still gets me and this page proves it more they did zero recon. They don’t know what supers are or how they work.
So they saw footage of a being who took down their universe’s version of the Borg in one shot, and didn’t conclude this was either.
A: A demon lord (they knew what a succubus was),
B: A goddess
C: An ascended level being
just, oh hey someone crazy powerful, let’s kidnap them and sell them to the highest bidder; a decision that still makes me think they had to have thought she was an android or something. Like maybe thinking the locals had dug up some precursor super weapon battle android, and they planned to steal it. But, doing zero recon to make sure that was the case and this wasn’t some divine, demonic, eldritch, ascended, ect…being hanging out on Earth was foolish given that knowledge of such things is apparently well known through space.
Not at all, there has been 3,000 years of recon on Earth, by aliens. OK a lot of it was rectal, bovine and crop malleability, but they knew enough to be able to report the presence or absence of such known powerful entities. The biggest problem is probably that there was an overabundance of information to sort through, such that Torchy considered it TL;DR.
somewhere else in these comments I mention that tourism and the fact they still didn’t know means they did zero recon, not even bothering to check the records of other alien species that have been to this planet as tourists. I mean no matter how we slice it, they came in quick, over confident, and didn’t bother to double check anything because they wanted to be the first to bag the big prize.
Note “recon by aliens” is kind of silly, its like saying Texas has plenty of recon by Asians or Europeans only several billion times more. Countless worlds of countless cultures with different relations to one another. We don’t even know if any of these poachers/sapient species traffickers *slavers*, are even among those that viewed Earth as a tourist spot prior to the recent events bringing Earth into the lime light. With the twilight council angle it felt more like a private island getaway for specific kinds of tourists willing to have lots of restrictions and not the general destination for a wide swath of the galaxy to relax on the beach.
As a semi-dedicated sword guy I am going to say a few things here.
Please be VERY careful buying swords on Amazon. If all you want is a wall hanger that looks pretty, by all means, have at er. If you want something that is well built, historically accurate, well balanced, or unlikely to explode or fall apart the first time you decide to cut a water bottle in your back yard, please please either do a lot of research before you buy, or buy something from a reputable maker.
A one handed sword should weigh in the 2-3lb range. A historically accurate Basket Hilted Broadsword might get close to 4lb, and a small-sword might weigh about a pound, but those are outliers.
A two handed sword should weigh from 3-5lb at the most.
There’s a lot more to how a sword handles than simple total weight, the exact distribution of that weight is important as is stuff like blade geometry and center of percussion, but those are good rules of thumb.
Don’t buy swords made of stainless steel unless you only ever plan to have it be something to look at (and even then the look of stainless steel is a bit odd). High carbon steel is better, but there are a ton of different types, and you’ll probably want to know exactly what type of high carbon steel. If the maker is ever cagey about exactly what type of steel the sword is made of, that is a big warning flag. Most reputable makers don’t even make you ask, it’s just there in the sword’s listing.
Be wary of “battle ready” or supposedly functional swords under $250usd. They exist, but are far outnumbered by manufacturers that will churn out cheap garbage and sell it to unaware people as something it really isn’t.
Two websites that can help if you want to make a good purchase are Sword-buyers-guide.com and Kultofathena.com.
If anyone has any further questions leave them here I’ll poke in to check over the next few days. I’m not a know everything mega-expert, but I’m reasonably well versed in European and some Chinese weaponry.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=skallagrim, often talks about swords! Then and/or https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=swordsage
I too like Skallagrim. Shadiversity also talks a lot about swords. His videos are a bit wordy/long, but informative. Here is a link for his channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkmMACUKpQeIxN9D9ARli1Q
Not honestly a huge fan of Shadiversity, but there are other people on YouTube who’s content I watch a lot.
Scholagladiatoria and Skallagrim are my two favorite, but I also watch Metatron, Swordsage, and Snapjelly.
As it happens I go to the HEMA school that Skallagrim used to train at before he moved to Nova Scotia.
Swordsage is an excellent resource for information about Chinese sword based martial arts.
As a matter of fact, if DaveB shows any interest in buying more historically accurate and well made Chinese designs, I’m going to point him towards the LK Chen swordmaker that’s been sending out swords to a lot of YouTube personalities, including Swordsage.
This. All of this.
A friend has a tailored to her, weighted for her use specifically, sword cane that she’s trained in using. Hasn’t yet had to cut someone. uses it as a cane mostly due to her lifelong health and disabilities. (combined) but maintains her sword arm to the point that she can use it at the desired speed to do serious damage unexpectedly
Heh, I’m reminded of Museum Replicas from back in the day. Absolutely lovely to look at (mostly), but utter shit manufacturing. Things would fall apart if you picked them up to abruptly.
OH god!
I just went to Museum Replica’s and started poking around.
The horror.
The horror.
Just reading their blurb on one handed swords deals San damage.
Why would you do this to someone Sigurther?
What did I do to deserve this?
(I exaggerate, but still…)
You do not exaggerate much…
I too know the horror. Pretty to look at and utterly useless for the most part.
I bought a very pretty two bladed axe from them once and then was told if I ever hit anything with it, the blades would all snap off.
As long as they were (are) described as “Ornamental Only” then there (should) be no problems, except for the few idiots who think they are getting a bargain and try and rob a store or chop down a tree, and inevitably demand a refund (if they survive the Darwin Award attempt)
I don’t plan on chopping up any waterbottles or melons with them, but I can only imagine what sort of bad quality stuff is out there even if it has decent reviews from people who want something that looks ‘cool.’
Just throwing in my two cents: you can easily justify the start-and-stop because supers are so new to this world that they’re still a novelty on an individual level. Of course everyone’s gonna stop and stare at whatever fresh weirdness presents itself. Even their failures are once-in-a-lifetime viewing (for now.) The whole world talks about the Olympics, sports are huge worldwide, and even the most mundane competition can be made interesting if the competitors are intense and masterful and sexy enough. We watch GOLF for crying out loud. BOWLING. CHESS. BAKING. Compared to those, every super-punch and gravity-defying flip are the height of entertainment, even for those who part of the fight. Throw in some witty banter and intriguing questions and you’ve got the stop-and-go.
they finna take sydney
Interesting sword. Looks like a variety of a 19th century Chinese dao broadsword. Those would not have been as heavy or made of damascus steel, though. (Coming from a guy who does have a collection of too many knives lying around. You never know when you might need to open a package, though….)
Dave mislabeled it, as you can see in the link itself it is a chef’s knife. At only 8″ long it is way too short to be considered a sword. However I appreciate that you are probably only saying that it ‘looks like’ (as in has a similar appearance) as opposed to ‘seems to be’. But I clarify it as folks might read your statement the other way.
It is the ‘damascus’, which caught my attention though, as I have had an interest in this for quite a while, via following various YouTube blacksmith and armoury channels.
So the first point I should make, regarding this, is that ‘damascus’ has multiple meanings, which vary over time.
As a broad description though ‘damascus steel’ is a high-quality steel which is distinguished by a pattern of alternating light and dark steels (typically being layers of high carbon steel with low carbon steel). So various later era Japanese swords would match this definition (even if they would never have been described as this at the time). However you are spot on in saying that the Chinese ones would not, as they never historically developed these kinds of layering techniques.
In the tightest of definitions ‘damascus steel’ would be that produced from metal mined and smelted from some specific mines in Damascus.* Which clearly would not include any ancient Chinese swords either, as you say.
My favourite YouTube channels which feature damascus weapons quite frequently are:
That Works (and the associated AWE Me, both of which heavily feature impractical, if fun, film and anime weapons)
Alec Steele (A born entertainer, who takes the audience along on his path to learning blacksmithing, failures and all).
shurap (Knife blades only but dang he is good and innovative. Also makes cups of tea.)
If you want to see a damascus steel sword made by a certified master smith though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnDkviyPOwE
If you love fine blades, you will not regret investing 31 minutes in watching this.
* Note that we have access to these mines today, but the specific smelting techniques have been lost. So whilst great efforts have been made to replicate these closely (in particular by an American metallurgist), until there is a consensus that such have been successful, there is no true modern damascus steel. Only surviving examples of ancient weapons.
The modern usage of ‘damascus steel’ has appropriated the historical usage and applied it to ‘pattern welding steel’ (and similar techniques), which are used to recreate the looks and quality of ancient damascus (and make other patterns which would not have existed in antiquity). Which includes the knife pictured in the link in Dave’s blog.
are you talking about a different link? i clicked on that “this sword” one and it went to an Amazon-listed product, which described itself as a dao sword and had a bit too fancy of a handle etc for cooking with
I am guessing that yours (and Dave’s) probably goes to Amazon.com. Whereas mine redirects to Amazon.co.uk and presumably something in the link changes as a result, as I consistently get to a product with this description (and matching appearance):
“8 Inch Chef Knife, FANTECK Professional Cooking Kitchen Knife VG10 Damascus Ultra Sharp 67-Layer High Carbon Stainless Steel Meat Cutting Fruit Gyuto Chef Knives”
Odd that it is still damascus though. I would have thought that if it was showing a random alternative object that it would be completely different, rather than a similar item (by comparison to the vast range of things Amazon has).
I’m happy that I can identify all three of the ‘mechs’ being used to subdue Maxima in the fantasy scenario (IG, GoG, NVoTW), but a little sad that a Megadeus wasn’t among them.
to be fair, Dave, the banter breaks it p a bit, providing some comic relief.
the problem is with the updates we have to wait untill we see conclusions to banter/combat. (not a jab at you at all, btw).
I’m also under the impression that Archon can afford mid combat banter, BECAUSE they are so powerful. We know Syd can hold her own in a fight against planet-wiping alien fleets, so even mechs would be peanuts for her. they just get caught with their pants down, so to say (and here’s hoping for moment where someone LITERALLy gets caught with their pants down, purely for laughs…
A prehensile tail is ALWAYS useful.
ALWAYS.
A prehensile tail is not useful if you need to put on a spacesuit, and your spacesuit was not manufactured making allowances for a prehensile tail.
And the lizard guy? Is about correctly proportioned. Muscles in a prehensile tail are just as bulky as muscles that strong anywhere else on your body. If it can support your weight, it’s as thick as one of your legs. If you can lift a sack of groceries with it, it’s as thick as one of your arms. You’re not just going to stuff that down the pants leg and still have room for your leg.
Very well countered. However what you are pointing out is a disadvantage to having a tail, however it is not actually stopping the tail itself from ALSO being an advantage, whilst suffering problems from the disadvantage too. The fact that you cannot put on the spacesuit next to you, does not stop you being able to use your tail to help move it out of the way, so that you can get to something else which can be of use to you, or open/shut an airlock etc.
Even if the only way you can stay alive in an emergency is to put on a space suit, the tail does not cease to be useful. You can use it to wave goodby to your relatives, or pen a farewell note. Still going to die, but you are getting utility out of your extra appendage, right to the end.
That said absolutes are always (ahem ‘almost always’) best avoided, as someone will be able to find a circumstance where they do not apply. Already, in the comic, Halo has defeated ‘unbreakable’ skin with ‘irresistible’ claws.
Hmm, monkey’s have fairly prehensile tails, and they are not as thick as an arm or a leg
monkeys with prehensile tails do have pretty thick tails (a weight ratio is also a concern and less is needed for smaller animals); but their tails are nearly as thick as their arms.
https://fieldprojects.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/4.png
They have pretty thin arms then…
new world monkey, and they are small animals they don’t have to be bulky to climb trees.
As a note: old world monkeys don’t have prehensile tails;
only new world monkeys have prehensile tails.
and their tails look very different, old world monkeys have thin tails while new world monkeys have much thicker tails for their body size, some of them like the picture in that link have tails nearly as thick as their forearms. While they aren’t all that thick, the ones that can actually hang from their tails are; other new world monkeys with thinner tails use them more for balance.
The point was: a prehensile tail doesn’t have to be thick and muscular, it all depends on what it’s purpose is for
this is true, if it needs to be as useful as an extra limb it needs good muscles, but seldom as thick as a leg, most species with tails that thick aren’t prehensile *save for some marsupials who have tiny legs to begin with like Opossums*, but rather leg thick tails tend to be for balance and mobility such as swimming or for use as a weapon.
you don’t get prehensile tails on crocodilians, kangaroos, and the like. But a demon with a skinny little tail that is also prehensile wouldn’t be too odd, supernatural assist and all, but its use also not being as a limb or balance just…there (nature doesn’t always need a reason for a feature to stay). I mean a vestigial remnant of an ancestral trait, or random mutation that didn’t hurt and may even have been sexually selected for *wrapping tails together was just so hot to their ancestors*
Remember the ‘no sell’ when Maxima tried to move the balls away from Syd, on the presumption that momentum and physics had something to do with how and why they were connected? Just a full-on dead stop, on trying to pull a ninety-pound girl out from under a truck she could easily lift?
Remember Mister Bubble getting hit, hard, on the Alari homeworld, with some kind of horrifying force that vaporized the ground around it, all coming from one direction – and not budging?
Now I’m imagining these dolts waiting for their moment, then swooping in at high speed to scoop her up in the forward cargo hold…. because surely, smacking her around inside the bubble won’t hurt her too bad if it’s just forty miles an hour or so more or less than she’s already going, will it ?
And winding up with a not-very-neat mister-bubble size hole, all the way through their ship. Possibly straight through some important parts like where the engine used to be. Or through some frame members that were actually kind of holding it together…..
Heh, yep.
That said though, provided that Sydney remains within the normal distance that the orbs stay within, the “we are not budging” effect will not kick in. Sydney can travel in her car, for example, without the orbs throwing down an anchor, simply because it is both them and her going along for the ride together.
But, if they attempt to scoop her and miss (for example) they may still grab one or more orbs, with the effect you described, as they will not want to go away from Sydney if she is still on the ground.
However if they scooped up Sydney but not some orbs, the others would likely just fly after her, to stay in range of Halo. Provided that they did not get snagged by some other obstacle on the way (e.g. a building or bridge), then the “we shall not move” effect will not happen. The orbs are used to flying after Sydney as she wizzes around at high speed.
Or they capture her in a small stasis pod like device, the orbs keep moving despite that (freaking them out no doubt), and proceed as a self defense measure to just orbit through the pod smashing holes in it.
Now, all this attempted kidnapping/enslavement… like the aliens from XCOM: did it ever occur to them to just *ask* for help? Like did any Ethereal consider hiring a human, give hella benefits, become a part of history to let one of their souls ride shotgun in their brain?
These ones no. Presumably their customers did not want to do soul riding, or they would have hired some soul ridy thing instead. Others may try different approaches, in future.
Just one problem… Max is likely to be extremely unwilling to let ANY Super, be they hero or villain or just neutral, to be unwillingly taken by any alien force. I mean, sure, they may be headed for Super Jail(tm), but we’re not about to let them get taken and disected to figure out how they work. Especially since that might help them figure out how to fight us better
Agreed.
But there was a lot going on and Maxima does not have super senses, nor can she defeat something like a teleporter (although it may not have been able to penetrate her force field, using Star Trek logic). If Maxima did not witness the kidnapping, then there is little she can do about it.
I don’t think they could kidnap Sydney for very long unless she was some how rendered unconscious.
Once in the ship just crashing those orbs into likely looking important equipment/control panels or a view port etc, in a space ship should render it pretty useless in short order.
Very true.
Do recall though that they set out on a kidnap mission. So whilst they intended to keep Maxima in suspended animation, it is reasonable to assume that they would have had contingency plans, for if that did not work, or if they decided to gather extra victims too.
Granted Hench Wench is not depicted as being actively restrained, but presumably (as per Dave’s blog above), she has lost her powers and is thereby in no position to offer significant resistance. More dangerous opponents would likely find themselves contained in a force field, stasis field, mundane brig or other advanced restraint system.
Many of which would also have little difficulty stopping the orbs from being more than a noisy nuisance, given that the most they have demonstrated is to hit about as hard as a human punches.
But a conscious Halo poses far more danger to their ship than just the orb punching…
Sydney was able to make one hit hard enough to break Sciona’s troll arm; which did regenerate right after. So it stands to reason they can speed up and hit harder than her other times using them to hit people which weren’t real combat situations.
I always liked the threatening to kick a person’s kneecaps in so hard the neighborhood kids will be the first to find them first looking for lost hockey pucks… It’s a very angry Canadian threat.
Yes steal the one that needs other supers for powers,your customers will be realy happy with that
Well unless her current employers fire her, she still has as many powers as all the villains in the team who hired her.
Plus, as the author pointed out, even without active powers, there are those who would like to examine her to figure out whatever it is that actually makes her a super in the first place. Which is far more valuable than just gaining the services of a (presumably reluctant and rebellious) super slave.
Which would actually (again as Dave mentions in his blog above), mean that it would be more helpful if she had been fired or otherwise lost her powers!
I don’t know about you, but I was looking forward to a Robocop reference where the bad guy (in this case BrÜt) yells “Your fired” and results in the good guys’ victory.
That was my idea too but it could be that her contract has a 1 month quit call notice and that all her bosses need to agree on firing her to loose all her powers.
Giving alien races the ability to have supers is a “jump the shark” moment from any standpoint of logic.
Think about it: Here we have Earth, worthless to the space-faring races at large except for their entertainment. Not even worth conquering because that would wreck the flow of said entertainment, which is their only valuable resource in the interstellar community. And this “not worth the trouble to conquer” calculus is reinforced many times over when a single human super takes out a Fel carrier with full shields up in a single shot, showing that any such attempts might be not only almost valueless but also potentially very painful.
But then, surprise! Aliens races have supers also.
So now what makes humanity scary to aliens that might want to fuck with us? Not much, as we just lost our only unique edge. The aliens have a huge tech advantage over us, as evidenced by Dabbler’s tech and Cora’s tech and Sydney’s tech that she wasn’t supposed to be given but fuck it Cora doesn’t care about interstellar law I guess, and also Deus’ tech since of course there are other aliens besides Cora who could give a fuck about the law.
Maxima is the Earth’s most powerful super, but that’s out of a population of under 10B persons. With the dozens or hundreds or thousands of alien worlds, and the billions upon billions of individuals populating them, a simple law of averages means that Maxima is going to be vastly outclassed by a good number of alien supers. And the entire Archon supers list is also going to be able to be put up against hundreds or thousands or millions of alien supers. Who also have a huge tech advantage, and the ability to bring in “war mech or orbital support.”
This was a really noob error for the author to make. In just a few short pages he gave away, for nothing at all, the entire uniqueness of Earths super powered population. They are now just a few Earth born supers amongst a universe filled with supers of all alien races.
Sciona was a perfectly fine antagonist, as she was not obviously a super. Her ‘powers’ were from her species and from her use of blood magic. And this is fine. But a universe filled with alien races who each have their own supers, plus tech, plus any variant of Sciona’s uniqueness as a blood mage, that isn’t fine. It’s really stupid. It destroys what makes our protagonists unique. And it does so freely, almost enthusiastically, getting nothing in return except a fight scene spanning a few pages. What a damn shame.
you do know these super mercs did not come with the alien mercs right?
So what are you talking about? There are no alien “supers”, although Cora already revealed Psykers are a thing on some alien worlds for their capital ships.
At no point was it stated alien worlds have supers, only that these aliens are trying to kidnap supers.
Also your complaint would be way behind if you didn’t realize Sciona and the soul patch Alari were pulling a they can inhabit the bodies of dead supers to get their powers maneuver.
Oberon never makes mistakes
I make mistakes, of course. You’ve made this accusation against me many times, and almost each time I make the same admission. But you have the memory (and other mental attributes) of a goldfish, so I suppose this is to be expected.
I will have to content myself with maintaining an error rate so much lower than yours that it requires a logarithmic scale to plot us both on anything smaller than the side of a mountain.
And your head is so far up your own arse you can look out your own mouth, and still fail to see sarchasm
I will freely admit that I have never seen a sarchasm. Is that a chasm on the side of the mountain plotting your error rate in comparison to mine?
No, I did not. And I still don’t. The confusion of the last few pages doesn’t appear to make this clear.
except where the guy now named Brut first appears where the torch lady asks who he is and he states they are just like minded and punches her. Ray then says some locals *mis stated as compatriots” showed up, Brut talks about bounties on Maxima. It was pretty much spelled out these supers are local and taking advantage of the chaos to make a grab at the alien tech and a play on Maxima.
if there is confusion due to how spread out they are in real time and other factors of life fade the memories of the pages just go back in the archive a few pages and re-read them.
No, it isn’t at all spelled out. “Like minded” when comparing to aliens doesn’t evoke Earth humans, it evokes a different group of aliens.
And then there are the physical cues: Brüt has more than enough … stuff … going on on his forehead and nose to pass for a Star Trek rubber forehead alien.* When he tosses the captured rifle up to someone who must be assumed to be on his team, that person looks like an alien. They at least do not look at all human. Blame the art if you like, but you can’t tell me that I’m supposed to assume that the flyer was a human in a brawl where there are piles of aliens. Brüt is also wearing brass knuckle equivalents which appear to be technological and not just simple metal bands. That evokes alien tech. But even if they are simply metal bands if he wanted brass knuckles then he should be wearing brass knuckles, since it is a proven design on this planet. Wearing something different easily leads to a ‘divergent evolution of a similar bit of brawling tech’ conclusion, not to some idiot trying out something new when there’s plenty of proven designs already available here on Earth.
.
* And yeah, I’m aware that the “Supers are the pinnacle of the human form” bit got thrown out the window during the brawl at the steak house, since a couple of the guys on the baddy team were definitely not pretty and could have been mistaken for aliens themselves. But still, we should at least pretend that when the author lays down a rule that it will be followed, eh?
What about the flier who catches the stasis gun looks non-human? They’re fully covered up, wearing a mask, so it’s not like there’s much to see, other than their hair.
You have a problem with confusing your opinion for objective fact, and then complaining about how other people, including the author, have their facts wrong when they simply have different opinions than you do.
Like minded means also after Maxima. Mercenaries.
He looks completely human to me and not at all like a rubber forehead alien, that is stretching the imagination to call him an alien. Unless you think he was a Spartoi or some other lazy looks human design. But that wasn’t said and he looks as human as any other muscle head in cartoon design.
the flyer is wearing a human flight suit to protect against wind and particulates, nothing about them says alien.
nothing about his knuckle dusters implies tech, unless you too mistook the feed back when hitting the shield as coming from them as so many did in the comments. His knuckle dusters were clearly modeled after the ones Juggernaut uses, why some in the comments were dubbing him “jugger-not”. the solid band design.
You are really stretching it to say anything of this was “clearly” alien when it was obviously intended as human. It feels more like you came to a conclusion, and are doubling down on it by pointing at things most would see as human not alien.
Look at Brüt’s face on pg 888 panel 2 and try to tell me that looks human. And in almost every other panel where his face is shown. His forehead and nose have more wrinkles on them than several ST:TNG alien species, by far. And also more than any human I have ever seen.
Look at Brüt’s ‘brass knuckles’ on pg 889 panel 6 and try to tell me that doesn’t look like they are glowing with power. Yeah, I can see where that might be because of the recent explosion, but that’s not how explosions work. Causing ‘con trains’ of power is usually how you show that an item itself is powered up. Crappy art if it is supposed to be the explosion, but have it your way.
The flyer in 886 panel 3 has a completely grey face, except for a weird triangle under what looks like goggles over the eyes. I already allowed that this could be an art issue, but it doesn’t scream out “face mask” to me. It looks to me like an alien who can fly for whatever reason, be that racial ability like Sciona’s species seems to have, or technological because aliens have that kind of thing easily at their disposal, or being an alien super.
You don’t have to like my conclusions, but you cannot fairly say that they are unreasonable.
Ever looked at Gordon Ramsey’s forehead?
That looks human to me, just some exaggeration of wrinkles. He is furrowing his brow and looks like any other muscle head in animation, especially Japanese anime.
and I checked out the flyer: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-886-insert-joke-about-airbags-here/
I usually read these on my phone so can zoom in a lot, she is wearing a goggles and one of those masks that tends to have a filter built in or a heating unit; as well as armored. https://newagetee.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Filter-face-mask-jeep-800×800-1.jpg
hers though looks to be designed like those of the later Mortal Kombat ninja face masks with the more stylized design.
basically one of these with a tactical face mask covering *with her hair still sticking out for some reason*,
https://static5.gunfire.com/eng_pl_Armor-Face-Mask-MC-Black-1152225683_1.jpg
https://www.evike.com/images/large/matrix-86926a.jpg
While I can see where you got your conclusion, I still say you ended up confusing yourself because of it. You drew some conclusions based on a misunderstanding of cosmetics resulting in what had to be some mental gymnastic filtering of the dialogue and actions of the scenes that stated they were locals that “rewinn” has already quoted below here.
There is nothing ‘going on on his forehead and nose’ except the normal range human flesh goes through when they frown or get angry (the term ‘furrowed brow’ ring a bell?)
The difference between us: when you are pointed out to be wrong (by several people), you triple down and insist that you are right and everyone else is a moron (including the author) and start throwing insults around
More Clues As To Brut’s Earthly/Non-Alien Natures:
* RAY: “The matter seems to have shifted to an internal affair” means the battle is now between Earthers; “your empowered cohorts” when contrasted with “alien governments and extra-legal organizations”) clearly refers to something that is not “alien”
* BRUT: is very familiar with Earth culture (uses umlauts cuz they’re cool, knows enough about the Muppets to think he knows what they’re made of, bases his attack strategy on nudity taboo, wears funny undies); calls Torchy “ALF” (showing he considers her an alien and therefore himself a native); conforms to GARAMM’s description of Earth/super fighting style (clobber talk clobber talk clobber talk)
* FACIAL FEATURES: Brut’s face is less odd than that of Math or Deus
* BOUNTIES: BRUT mentions DOA bounties; Earthly baddies have reason to want her dead, but aliens have little reason for this; they can just stay away from Planet Dirt
* HENCH WENCH: works for Brut, is familiar with American contract law, appears very human.
* BRUT’S WATCH CAP: a garment completely unknown to galactic civilization (…ok just kidding there …)
…GIVE HER A TAIL!
Love the title. I have -got- to watch “Plan 9 from Outer Space” again soon! :-)
Im sorry did you seriously reference plan 9 from outer space?!
i haven’t thought about that $12budget movie since i was a kid!
Surely the first and only pop culture reference that’s been made in the comic. :)
I approve that Iron Man reference. I can’t tell if the one to the right of it is just a random alien or also a reference.
So, is *no one* going to mention that the mercs are apparently using the Millennium Falcon as their transport ship?
(5th panel)
Aha! Took me a while to confirm, but this alien girl is of the same species as the one who first talked to Sydney (in translated English) on Fracture Station. ( https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-687-a-friendly-tongue/ )
*Not* the same girl as I first suspected; that one was blonde and longer-haired.